Project summary
Client: Museum of Vancouver
Industry project at CDM. An animated data visualization projection for the A Seat at the Table exhibition.
Role: UX Designer & researcher
Team:
Lena Atzaba – Project Manager
Eugenia Orozco – Animator
CelinaWang – Illustrator
Ye Lan – Programmer
Ghanashyam Sateesh – Programmer
We created an animated data visualization that tells the story of Chinese immigration to British Columbia spanning several centuries.
The project was designed as a 4m x 3m projection located at the entrance of the exhibition, serving as an introduction to the history of Chinese immigrants in B.C.
I was responsible for the information architecture, finding different types of data and structuring it to tell a cohesive story.
To read more about the data structuring process and UX considerations take a look at the case study.





The biggest challenge of this project was finding data and combining different kinds of data into a cohesive story that could be quickly understood. This was done by highlighting numbers of migrants, key demographics of each eras and historical events that caused migrations.
I designed the information architecture for the project, breaking down all the research into 7 eras and key information. I designed this infographic chart to guide our animation process and accompany our storyboards. It highlights the key aspects that had to be present in every section of the video. This chart turned into a panel I designed with out art assets that ended up being used by the MOV as an informative companion piece placed next to the video in the exhibition.
The goal of the animation was to show that Chinese immigration in British Columbia is not a new phenomenon; the patterns of immigration change over time, but the mobility of Chinese immigrants is a constant.
Knowing visitor could walk in at any time the experience was designed as a seamless loop, so no matter at what point people walked in they could get a full experience of the 7 eras of Chinese migration shown.